


Strategic Manoeuvres

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Courfeyrac is a master strategist, Don't copy to another site, Enjolras POV, Enjolras drinks his Respect Women Juice, Get-Together Fic, Grantaire is determined to stand in the way of his own happiness, M/M, and everyone is too nosy for their own good, lesmisbigbang2020, quarantinebigbang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24014008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: The objective is simple: manoeuvre Grantaire to the balcony.Unfortunately, as in most cases, the formation of an objective is much easier than its delivery.Warnings:casual alcohol consumption (no abuse)
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 195
Collections: Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition





	Strategic Manoeuvres

**Author's Note:**

> My entire heart in love and thanks to [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait) for beta-ing for me and trying to keep up with every single attempt I made to write this challenge over the past two months. <3 My gratitude is physically incapable of being overstated.

The objective is simple: manoeuvre Grantaire to the balcony. 

Unfortunately, as in most cases, the formation of an objective is much easier than its delivery. 

For one thing, Grantaire has been avoiding Enjolras. He can deny it all he wants (though, to Enjolras’s knowledge, he hasn’t yet—probably because _Grantaire is avoiding him),_ but Enjolras knows it to be true. It’s been going on since Enjolras attempted A Move in a not-so-private setting several weeks ago, a tactic that Courfeyrac had later chastised him over. 

For another, Grantaire is good at avoiding Enjolras. He doubts the others even realize yet: it would seem that Grantaire had come prepared with multiple topics of conversation at the ready for any Ami that he should run into (who isn’t Enjolras, at any rate), and he has done an absolutely winning job of generating something that almost looks like genuine conversation to the untrained eye. Enjolras knows better, though, and so does Courfeyrac, and so does Grantaire.

(Combeferre is still unconvinced, but that’s because Grantaire is very good at engaging him on matters of cryptids, and Combeferre is Soft.)

“He tried to pay me twenty bucks to keep him away from you,” Courfeyrac confides once they reconvene in the kitchen.

“Did you take it?”

“Of course I did, it was free money with no follow-up.”

Enjolras doesn’t feel remotely bad for Grantaire. “Good. Any tips, then?”

“Besides literally texting our allies to evacuate the premises—which, for the record, I still think they’d be down for—not really.” 

Meeting his friend’s eye, he sighs: Courfeyrac has been Enjolras’s biggest supporter since Day 1, and he has no idea how to thank the man except to succeed. Taking a fortifying sip of his cider—another tip, this one from Joly—Enjolras steels himself once more to make Courfeyrac proud. “Where is he now?”

“Talking with Bahorel. Hallway.”

The hallway, of course: they’d discussed the strategic strength of the location before, a fortitude for party nomads that acts simultaneously and almost in contradiction as a gravitational force toward whatever caprice presents itself. More to the point, it’s a gamble, but when Enjolras knows what’s at stake it’s a gamble he feels confident in.

As Courfeyrac had indicated, the hallway does contain Bahorel and Grantaire as well as Musichetta. He knows that the entire JBM crew are on his side, though, and moreover that Musichetta is a valuable ally when she sees fit—and, if the fortune-teller’s glance she sends him is any indication, she does.

“Goodness, Grantaire, you are absolutely burning!” she exclaims with a sudden touch of her hand to his forehead.

“What? No I’m not.”

“Bahorel, you check,” she says, wisely stepping on his toes as he reaches an unaware hand over. It occurs to Enjolras, not for the first time, that their group likely lies entirely in the calculating palms of Musichetta, Cosette, and Éponine. 

“Fuck! Uh, yeah. Burning up, my dude.”

“He should probably go to the balcony to cool off, right?”

“Yeah, probably.” It’s the first time he’s ever seen Bahorel caught on the back foot, and Enjolras is dying to know how Musichetta has managed it. “You wanna go to the balcony, man?”

“Actually,” Musichetta interrupts, “I bet Enjolras would love to take him out.”

“Really?” Another pointed stamp. “You know, I bet he would,” Bahorel winces.

The power.

“I dunno,” Grantaire wonders, “I’m sure The Golden God is way too busy for my drunk ass.”

“I’m not, actually.”

“I think there’s a bottle of Tylenol in Joly’s bedroom, let me just—” starts Grantaire, disappearing into another room that may or may not belong to Joly.

Enjolras blinks, turning to Musichetta. “Does Joly live here?” He knows Bossuet does, but they live in one another’s pockets enough that Joly may well have moved in when Enjolras wasn’t paying attention.

“It’s about fifty-fifty,” she sighs, apparently letting Bahorel go with a copious massage to one shoulder and an unsubtle whisper in his ear. “We’ve more or less given up on their rental and are still debating between here and my place when our leases are up.”

Musichetta’s flat is farther away but better tended to, so Enjolras has no definitive opinion on the matter. “Thanks for trying.”

“I’ll do what I can to get Bossuet or Joly over,” she promises.

Making his way back toward the living room, Enjolras allows himself an indulgent sip of cider: the plan is Courfeyrac’s, so he’d already known it to be a good one, but striking an alliance with the JBM coalition had gained them a massive advantage. With Courfeyrac had come Cosette and, with more than a little confusion, Marius; JBM had won them Bahorel as well; Jehan, though absent tonight, had granted the fullest extent of eir blessings when Courfeyrac had intimated their aims; Feuilly is decidedly neutral but supportive; and although Combeferre had told Enjolras he’d be watching from the sidelines, his conversation with Grantaire has been noticeably more concentrated on viewing the constellations than makes particular sense given tonight’s limited visibility.

With all of that figured out, the only member of their number with whom he and Courfeyrac do not have an understanding is— 

“Blondie,” mutters a chillingly familiar voice.

Smiling politely in response, he twists to face her. “Éponine.” It’s not that he doesn’t have utmost respect for her, he absolutely does, but she is perhaps his greatest critic in addition to being Grantaire’s dearest non-JBM friend, which makes her unequivocally the most intimidating. 

“A moment?” Her smile is tight and barely reaches her mouth, much less the rest of her features. “In the kitchen?”

Kitchen is neutral territory, according to Courfeyrac. “Sure.”

She doesn’t drag him there by the ear, which is surprising enough that Enjolras is grateful for it. Nevertheless, he is absolutely wary as they continue to the No Man’s Land, especially since he is over half a cider in.

There seems to be no particular rush once they do arrive at their destination to address the matter at hand. Éponine’s drink swishes lazily around the inside of her glass as she leans back against the counter, eyes narrow as she sizes Enjolras up. This, at least, is something Enjolras feels more confident in: the politics of strategic relations. Courfeyrac would probably say something clever and charming, Combeferre would raise his eyebrows at her until she began. Enjolras is neither of his friends, and that has always been their greatest strength as a unit.

“With what can I assist you this evening?” he prompts.

“What are your intentions with my flatmate?” 

He watches her down her drink without breaking eye-contact before answering levelly, “I want to get him to the balcony.”

“To what end?” she pushes, narrow gaze further hardening.

It’s a gaze he holds as he responds, “I want to ask him out.”

“On a date?”

The question makes him frown. “Of course.”

“You want something serious with him?” Her tone is calculatingly nonchalant as she pushes off the counter to cross the narrow kitchen and open the fridge. “This isn’t just some passing fancy?”

“I—” Flowery and elaborate declarations of affection won’t gain Enjolras any headway with Éponine, and it’s one of the reasons he has always enjoyed her company. “I am very serious about this matter.”

The bottle’s cap comes loose with a reverberant _pop._ “And that’s why you want him on the balcony?”

“Yes.” 

She considers him another moment with pursed lips before stepping toward him. “Take this, then,” she says, pushing her fresh bottle into his hand and taking the cider. “He’ll think you’ve drank more and are less likely to spout pre-prepared bullshit. Not that I think letting your guard down would hurt.”

Sighing, he swaps bottles without argument and fills her now-empty glass with the beer when she gives it an expectant shake. It’s not as if he’ll be drinking it anyhow. “Any other advice?”

Her mouth goes firm, eyes calculating her betrayal. “Don’t give him room to bullshit.”

“You have to know that’s paramount to muzzling him.”

“Exactly: the moment you let him speak, you’ve already lost.” With that wisdom passed, she breezes past him out the door, and after taking a moment to recollect himself he follows.

Courfeyrac gracefully excuses himself from a conversation with Bossuet and Marius before descending upon him, smile tightening as he throws an arm around Enjolras and hisses, “What were you doing in there?” 

“Negotiating with Éponine?”

“On her own turf?”

“You said the kitchen was No-Man’s Land.”

“Except with Éponine! Éponine claims all neutral territory!”

“Well, she’s in.”

“‘In’?”

“In,” Enjolras affirms. “She’s helping us.”

“Éponine is helping us,” Courfeyrac repeats flatly, disbelief evident.

“She told me she is.”

His friend seems to consider this for a beat before nodding. “Éponine is helping us,” he says, withdrawing his arm from around Enjolras to face him. “You remember what we rehearsed?”

“Yes.” Mostly. Primarily. 

“Are you lying to me?”

“No.” Mostly not. Primarily not.

Courfeyrac’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t push the matter. “We don’t want to look like we’re scheming, so you’d better get the status update from Joly while I Mingle.”

The man disappears before Enjolras can ask for any sort of elaboration, but that’s fine because Joly has already met Enjolras’s eye across the room. Apparently this is something that had been pre-arranged.

“Enjolras!” Joly cheers like they’re genuinely surprised to see Enjolras when he appears. They’d evidently been deeply embroiled in some lively discussion or another with Cosette before then, and he can’t help but feel that he’s interrupting even though he knows he’d been invited over.

“Goodness,” Cosette tells him after a polite bissou, “I think Bahorel needs me to settle something, I’ll be just a moment.” Before Enjolras can fully process the words she’s already off, curls bouncing with each step.

“I take it that’s not an accident?” Enjolras guesses.

“We’re trying to keep it casual since R’s getting suspicious.”

“Right. What’s the plan?”

“We weren’t anticipating him being so uncooperative,” they confess. Now doesn’t seem like the time to remind Joly that Enjolras had warned them of this in advance. “We’re trying to lull him back into a false sense of security.”

“What can I do to help?”

They sigh. “Best thing you can probably do for now is lay low, stay out of sight. Let him forget about the possibility.”

The urge to flinch is tamped down. “And you’re quite sure he wants...this?” It’s a lot of effort and pageantry to invest if Grantaire really is as interested in dating Enjolras as everyone seems to think.

“He knows what he wants, he’s just convinced he shouldn’t have it.”

And here it finally is, after a week of sidestepping and awkward avoidance. “Why?”

“Because—” Joly interrupts themself with a pinch to the bridge of their nose and a pained sigh. “Because you’re the sun, and he’s some peon.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re on that nonsense too.” 

“I’m not,” they quickly reassure him. “I’ve investigated your carpal tunnel myself: I pray any higher power has more common sense than you.”

“If we’re referring to the Greek pantheon, I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Indeed not,” they smile, amused. “He thinks we’re making fun of him, and since he started cutting back on his drinking he’s become a bit more...sensitive about it.”

It makes sense. “So should I act as though I’m leaving?”

A moment of consideration passes before Joly shakes their head. “Too theatrical, and not that I don’t love a good performance, but it’s getting rather Shakespearean at this point—his comedies rather than the dramas. Just wait near the balcony, we’ll bring him to you.”

Setting his jaw, Enjolras nods.

Their conversation continues genially until Cosette returns shortly after, Marius in tow. They dance their way around some book recommendations that Enjolras has no intentions of following up on before he’s able to excuse himself, bypassing the sofa Joly had probably intended for him to wait on entirely in favor of stepping outside.

Now that he can trust the general flow of the party to eventually flush Grantaire out, Enjolras has time to appreciate the night: it’s cool for May but warm for spring, and the beer Éponine had forced on him isn’t as bad as he had feared. Even so, he isn’t very interested in being as drunk as everyone would apparently prefer him to be, so after the second sip he waters the sidewalk below with the remnants of whatever relative vintage he’d been offered, leaving enough to ensure that he won’t be offered another. He’s just spotted the north star when he hears the door open behind him, followed shortly by the voice of none other than Marius Pontmercy.

“Oh goodness, I actually just realized that I have to, erm, shave my hamster!”

“You don’t have a hamster,” Grantaire weakly protests as the sliding door closes and unsubtly locks, trapping him outside. Only a moment passes for Enjolras to feel guilty before Grantaire speaks again, having evidently turned around. “Oh, for fuck’s sake—”

“Fancy seeing you here,” Enjolras grits through a false smile, whirling the pitiful remainder of Éponine’s beer in its amber bottle. Courfeyrac had promised him that Grantaire wanted this, _everyone_ had promised him that Grantaire wanted this. “Care for, uh.” Words. Lines. “Stars?”

The other man huffs deeply but joins Enjolras nevertheless, pointedly remaining at the opposite end of the porch.

“You have a fondness for your neighbors to the right?” Enjolras incorrectly supposes: Grantaire hates the neighbors to the right, everyone who spends any amount of time at Bahorel and Bossuet (and Joly?)’s apartment does. It’s the reason Enjolras had taken the left.

“Not particularly,” Grantaire admits through gritted teeth, moving closer to the center of the balcony. Enjolras does as well—only a few inches, but it’s enough to close the two-meter gap between them to one

More silence. “I, uh. I’d been hoping to catch you tonight.”

“Oh really?” Grantaire supposes dryly, throwing back the rest of whatever’s in his glass.

“Yes, actually.” Indignance grants Enjolras the strength to straighten slightly, bringing him nearly to a height with Grantaire. There had been more lines before this part, but Enjolras is impatient after a whole night of dodges and delays, and letting this conversation meander the way they’d originally planned provides Grantaire with 100% more opportunities for bullshit and evasion. “I hear you like me.” 

“Nope.”

“A lot.”

“Not remotely.” Even in the relative dim light of the veranda Grantaire’s cheeks are glowing red, and it gives Enjolras the confidence he needs to continue.

“I hear that I unambiguously like you, too.”

Starting slightly, Grantaire chokes on air before taking an imaginary sip of his non-existent drink.

Enjolras pretends to ignore it. “Quite a lot, actually. Apparently everyone is aware.”

“Is that so?” coughs Grantaire.

“It is.”

“What a conundrum.”

“Quite.”

That’s it, that’s all that Enjolras had planned. Courfeyrac had had Shakespearean aspirations for this moment (the romantic interpretation), but the longer the silence stretches the more uncertain Enjolras feels about the endeavor. His hands clench and unclench around the coated cast iron of the railing as he fights to keep any other nervous tells under wraps.

Enjolras has never much cared for Shakespeare, all told. The man was brilliant at what he did, no doubt, but he’s always found himself drawn more to essays, biographies. Nonfiction.

“So?” Enjolras prompts at last.

“So...what?”

It’s more of a relief than it should be to have confirmation that Enjolras had not been abandoned in his relative panic. “Do you—would you—” He takes a moment to breathe deeply and collect his thoughts. “Dinner?”

“You want to take me out to dinner.”

“Yes.”

“Like, on purpose?”

At this Enjolras finally turns to face Grantaire. “What kind of question is that?”

The other man shrugs. “A rather fair one, I think. I mean, you have seemed pretty annoyed every time you’ve approached me the past couple of weeks.”

“The past couple of weeks that you’ve been _avoiding me?”_ His eyebrows raise pointedly at Grantaire, who ruffles in response.

“I didn’t think you’d, like, _notice.”_

“As you’ve observed, it wasn’t particularly easy to get a hold of you in the first place.”

“No one else noticed.”

“Yes, it would seem you’re rather good at it,” Enjolras huffs. Courfeyrac hadn’t even believed him until he’d urged his friend to watch the way Grantaire artfully dodged him. “I, however, am the one who had to get a hold of you.”

“My professors have always told me I’m a slippery bastard,” Grantaire acknowledges with a smug half-smirk, leaning back over the cast iron.

“Speaking of,” Enjolras redirects, already sensing the conversation imminent derailment, “dinner? And I should probably inform you now that if you’re considering jumping the railing, I am not above a flying tackle.”

“I value my life, thanks,” the other man dryly informs Enjolras even as he takes a reluctant step back from the edge, “though who would I be to deny Thanatos his whims and Hades his dues—”

“Dinner,” Enjolras reminds him.

Shoulders sagging, Grantaire sighs. “Dinner,” he repeats.

Unease grips Enjolras again. “If I’ve misread something and you’re not interested, you can say ‘no,’” he reassures. “Having feelings for someone doesn’t mean you’re obligated to pursue them.”

“Agreed.” Grantaire’s weight shifts uneasily. “So you don’t have to do this.”

“I—what?” 

Coloring again, Grantaire turns back out to face the treetops. “We wouldn’t be a particularly good match,” he observes with a shrug, “and you seem the type to let your sense of justice get in the way of your own personal happiness.”

“You think,” Enjolras says slowly, narrowing his eyes, “that I want to take you out based on some misplaced sense of justice?”

He snorts. “Well when you say it like that it sounds stupid.”

“It is stupid.”

“Apples and trees, or whatever.”

“So what, you think I ask out any passing object of my fancy?”

“Oh, I’m an object of fancy, am I?”

This conversation is exhausting, almost as exhausting as the process of getting Grantaire to the point of having it, and Enjolras fights the urge to yank at his own hair. Or Grantaire’s, perhaps, if there was some chance that it might get him to stop this verbal dance and walk in a metaphorically straight sentence. Exhaling through his nose, Enjolras tries again. “Shall I make a list extolling your virtues?”

“Would it make you feel better? It is a rather short list.”

“I like that you’re smart.”

“Arguable.”

“I like that you’re interested in so many things.”

“Jack of all trades, master of none.”

“I like—God help me—that you’ve never been able to take a single statement for what it is.”

“Gods, you do need help.”

“I like your laugh.”

“Okay, I’ve changed my mind, you can stop.”

“Are you sure?” Enjolras is finally starting to have fun, and it seems that his enjoyment is directly proportionate to the shade of Grantaire’s flush. “It has been rather difficult to track you down, perhaps I should take advantage of this time. After all, who knows when my next opportunity might be?”

With a roll of his eyes and a defeated-sounding huff, Grantaire slumps. “Dinner?” Enjolras might be worried about the consent issues of embarrassing someone into a date except that he can see the small grin nearly tucked away in the other man’s shirt. “Um, breakfast might be better though.”

“Breakfast?”

Seeming to catch Enjolras’s uncertainty, the other man quickly elaborates, “I work afternoons, so I’m not usually off until late evening.” A waggle of his eyebrows, of course, is tagged on. “I mean, unless you have alternative curriculars in mind—”

“Breakfast will be fine,” he declares, batting at Grantaire’s upper arm.

“I’m sure we could find some evening I’m free—” 

“No, really, this is all right—”

“—assure that I’ll have the entire night free to use at your disgressi—”

A kiss also hadn’t been part of the plan. Courfeyrac had suggested it at one point, but Enjolras had shot it down with all of the vehemence of someone intensely uninterested in Shakespearean hijinks and questionable consent practices. As he feels Grantaire’s lips give way under his, though, growing soft and pliable and moving with a gentle urgency that feels almost uncharacteristic of the man, it occurs to Enjolras that his life could perhaps use a little chaos.

They do separate, albeit with no small amount of reluctance, and Grantaire rather breathlessly (to Enjolras’s intense satisfaction) repeats, “Breakfast?”

Wetting his lips as the doors behind them audibly unlock, Enjolras affirms: “Breakfast.”

**Author's Note:**

> Musichetta was promising Bahorel that she's make some of this super-secret recipe of hers that he basically lives and dies for -- nothing lascivious or uncouth. ;)
> 
> Hey! If you enjoyed this, please let me know down below or at my [tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com)!!


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